Oh Christmas Tree...

For the past few years my family has cut our own tree from the property. We have a fairly large number of yellow scraggle pines. Today we went to get the trees. One for my grandparents and one for us. The one for the grandparents is fairly small. Small enough that I carried it back on my shoulder. Ours on the other hand is really very large. Large enough that it would have been time consuming and unpleasant to drag it back by hand. So I decided to pull it by goat. I got the two of them out, unbolted the double-tree from the cart, got plenty of rope and the two breastcollars from the harnesses and set out.

I was worried that the goats would try and eat the tree but they were good. They both tried to eat it once or twice but when I sent them away they happily ate the honeysuckle elsewhere. It took maybe 15-20 minutes for me to tie the double-tree to the trunk. I wrapped the rope around the branches, fastened the traces to the double-tree and went to get the goats. They had halters on and let me fasten the leadropes and bring them to the tree. Merry made a bit of a lunge for it but I managed to dissuade them from eating it and they amenably started eating the grass. I got the harnesses on and of we went!

There were some glitches for the first 75-100 yds. Merry's leg got tangled up in the trace, Pippins trace came off a few times, and he didn't pull perfectly consistently but things only got better. By the time we got down from the high field it was beautiful! They were nicely and evenly spaced and walking smoothly in sync.  I was so thrilled! We got home and they each got a carrot and I tried to take a photo or two. I unhitched them and put them back in the stall with some nice hay and beet pulp.

It was such a fantastic experience. It made me feel so good about my relationship with the goats and their abilities. Firstly the sheer fact that I can take them out and just do it. Pull a tree. None of us had ever pulled a tree before but it still went well. They didn't freak out about the great noisy thing behind them. I was very proud of Merry when a trace wrapped around his leg and he just tried to keep pulling. If I had been him I'd have gone bonkers! Apparently they are fairly confidant goats. :) And at the end, when they had both finished drinking I pointed and clicked my fingers and they both walked happily and willingly into their pen.

M.